A podcast exploring how pop culture can help start conversations about science.

Dr Jon Roberts completed his PhD with Wellcome Connecting Science in 2018, having explored how families communicate about genetics. His research also explored how families’ knowledge and enjoyment of pop culture can be used to facilitate engagement with genomics.

The Character of Science is a four episode podcast series, hosted by Jon and elaborating on his doctoral work. Designed for an audience beyond academia, Jon conducts casual interviews with people who bring different expert points of view to the topic, from bioethics, science, genetic counselling and social science.

Each of the episodes focusses on a specific theme drawn from topical ethical issue in science, particularly genetics, which has been explored in mainstream film. The films and themes to be examined are: Contagion (Life Imitating Art), The Martian and Ex-Machina (Scientists as Heroes and Villians on screen), Moon (Money, Genetics and Consent) and Gattaca (Pay-to-Play Genetics).

All the episodes can be found on the series’ page on Buzzsprout.